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"From its chamber comes the whirlwind, and cold from the scattering winds." - Job 37:9.

"The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course".

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Global Forecast System (GFS) Depiction (Aloft at 20,000Ft) Early WednesdayAfternoon - By Thursday Evening .....Story line near bottom of this post

TODAY: Frontal boundary moving through Central Florida early afternoon. As of noon time the front was lying across "Central Direct", 'Dead Central"..."The Central Dividing Line" take your choice (terms used for blogger's purposes). Boundary progresses through South Florida into this evening to lay out eventually just south of the Florida Straits. Meanwhile, drier and 'much' cooler air lags behind until overnight as does clearing skies. Expect the remainder of the day to stay cloudy as visible satellite imagery shows no clearing in site the whole way to Mexico upstream heading this way. Hard to imagine it will ever clear out by l, though whether Central or South Florida will ever see pristinely-crystalline clear skies might be a bit in question as all areas might at least continue to see thin veils of cirrus streaks overhead.

Frontal boundary across "Dead Central" at Noon, Sunday January `10th

RECAP OF SATURDAY: A tornado did touch down in SW Cape Coral. Images below and text as well . Photos on line showed some cars turned over and tossed a bit on top of debris. Tornadowas not 'light-weight' by any means and from what I've heard might rank as an EF-2 on the Intensity scale after official damage assessments are complete (if they are not already)

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BLOG POST IMAGE FROM EARLY YESTERDAY

Radar showing storms approaching SW Florida Prior to Tornado Event

MONDAY: Less cloudiness and much cooler with a low close to 48-51F eastern Brevard County and south toward interior Dade County (where it will be warmer) and through the keys in the typically warmer locations this season as has been pointed out time and time again in many previous posts. Other locations toward interior Central toward SW Florida and north will bottom out closer to the mid-upper 40Fs. A secondary 'perturbation in the flow pattern is headed mainly toward South Florida on Tuesday.TUESDAY: Guidance shows the very shallow surface boundary to remain well south of Central Florida and most of South Florida as well, however at around 2000 ft the boundary does lift north..as an 'elevated warm-front like situation. Expect much cloudiness in association with this interaction of a disturbance over-running that boundary with possibly some light rain as far north as Cape Canaveral but more like much further south toward Ft Pierce-West Palm to Miami mostly on the east side of the state. All in all, Tuesday remains very cool temperature wise into the afternoon along with that chance of creasing cloud coverage if not some rain especially south of Brevard County.WEDNESDAY: After passage of disturbance a second surge of colder air moves down the state with NW winds a bit more elevated that for our comfort zones. So far, Wednesday morning appears might well be the coldest morning of the season for many areas though not quite as cold as earlier forecasts were crying out for. But coupled with that will be some rather brisk winds. Lower-mid 40Fs might be found in many locations along and north of I-4 with upper 40Fs to lower 50Fs immediate east coast from the Cape and south; but this will all be very short lived as we moved toward Thursday and eye a rapidly evolving and problematic situation (potentially).

"WARY EYES ON LATE WEEK"Enter in now the next threat of potentially severe weather. Guidance for the past 3 GFS runs is showing wind fields that look nearly down-right 'evil and wicked'..with strong speed shear and directional sheer resulting in large looping hodographs as will be shown here further down in the post. The cyclonic curvature of the wind fields with height coupled by up to 60-70 kts bulk shear and even moderate shear in the lower to mid levels of the atmosphere are not kids stuff by any means (in regard for severe weather producing potentialities). Instability though at this point is showing to be very weak, but who cares. You don't mess with the wind fields being shown by the GFS at this point in time.Do note, however, that the NWS offices are all eyeing this upcoming late week and monitoring any potential situation with great skill level. The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) so far is not even making a statement about late week (which seems a bit odd) but regardless I expect you might hear your TV broadcaster making mention of this possible severe weather setup in the next day or two if the trend of the GFS continues and it and the European model come into better agreement which for now is not happening. The threat 'area' so far has been "somewhere near to south of I - 4"Also to observe, the time frame we are looking at is late Thursday afternoon through the wee hours of Friday morning well after dark. Those late night hours can make things even more difficult from a forecaster perspective as well as a safety issue for the general public. But that is not all, a secondary 'system' could be moving in about 36 hours behind the first. How this all might eventually come together though is way too soon to say. Even yet still, out in the far "magic eight-ball future" the GFS shows another equally as potent system moving toward Florida around Day 9 or 10 from now. In short, looks like the next 'family of waves' with this next Atmospheric Set of waves moving in might be a bit more problematic and even more difficult to forecast than the previous one, at least in regards to the way it really matters most. Comfort and Safety..as well as 'inconveniences".. on another note though, no cold air is shown with any of this upcoming activity until after the last 'family member' departs into the Western Atlantic.What that means is ..Monday through Wednesday rather cold, but end of story for a while.Hodographs like this one shown are a signal for a high degree of caution and only seen across Florida in Winter to early spring during severe weather events..remembering this is only a forecast..and rather far out in time one at that at this stage. Could very easily change and go away almost entirely.